Logo.

After writing about my fondness for the GE logo last week, I decided to see if there were any vintage polo shirts with the GE logo available online. I found a shirt from the early 2000s that fit the bill and it arrived a few days later.

Today, I shall model it for you. I really like vintage golf and polo shirts these days. Even though I work from home, I tend to still dress a “loose” version of business casual.

Social Media.

A random photo I found on the Internet. I enjoy its “Bliss” like qualities.

I wonder if I’m going to see a “post-social media” world in my lifetime. Society has become so obsessed with social media over the past decade, it’s hard for me to figure out if this is a long, drawn out fad, or if society has made some sort of dependent shift on social media.

One of my reasons for my musings on the subject is because of me leaving Twitter a few months ago, moving to Mastodon, and now seeing Mastodon use wane a little bit. There are several folks I enjoyed following on Mastodon a few months ago but they’ve become quiet, their timelines not showing any updates for several weeks. I didn’t know some of these people outside of Mastodon and for a brief moment I was compelled to write them an email asking, “Are you okay?”, but then I thought their only response might have been “Who is this loon?”

So I didn’t send an email.

My Facebook account continues to exist merely for a couple of groups I follow and for the occasional update as to what’s going on at our home for folks back east. It’s a lazy approach to staying in touch with the goings-on with the family, but Facebook traffic seems to be down as well. Perhaps the algorithms have figured I hop on there maybe once a day and are subsequently shunning me accordingly.

Looking back at Mastodon, I went a week without doing much with my account, posted a few updates over this past weekend, and then am quickly losing interest again. Many Mastodon folks like to chat about what’s going on with Twitter. By the way, the fire continues to burn at Twitter. Over the weekend some of the Mastodon chatter had shifted to the shiny, latest thing and that’s BlueSky, which is an invite only Twitter clone by one of the Twitter founders Jack Dorsey. I have no interest in that.

Instagram gets an occasional flight photo or selfie of the husband and me, but that doesn’t really bring much in the way of blowing up my skirt.

I have been thinking of things to write about here on this blog and on my more “professional” blog I’m starting to put together. Long form writing is starting to feel appealing to me again. Reading actual books is also becoming appealing to me again. I don’t like reading books on my iPad that much anymore, holding an actual book that isn’t illuminated by blue LED light is just what the doctor ordered on my eyes.

I’ve also been seeking out other blogs to follow again and have been enjoying that very much. It’s very reminiscent of 2009 and I like that. Maybe I can get to my 2009 weight again, though that was 14 years ago and my weight has nothing to do with reading or writing blogs.

Maybe it’s my interest in social media in general that’s waning versus social media itself waning. When I go on my storm chasing trip in a couple of weeks perhaps I’ll use that opportunity to move away from the platforms and just stick to blogging.

That would be an interesting experience.

Road Trip.

It’d been a while since Earl and I had gone a day trip. Some of our best memories together have been on these impromptu little trips, so yesterday we decided to set out and have some fun.

Our first leg was through the Green Valley Pecan groves between Sahuarita and Continental. This area always amazes me because of all of the greenness surrounded by the desert. From there we made our way to the top of Madera Canyon in Coronado National Forest.

We stopped at the gift shop at one of the little lodges and had some unsweet tea and a cookie. We also watched the hummingbirds do their thing. They move too fast for photo opportunities.

From there we made our way along Interstate 19 to the border at Nogales and drove along the wall. Interstate 19 will remain signed in metric units, a hold over the planned conversion back in 1980. New signs are going up, replacing the old signs from the late 90s. Though this old sign from back then is still in great shape.

From Nogales we made our way up through Patagonia to Sonoita, where we participated in an impromptu wine tasting. Marilyn was our hostess at Desert Ride Winery. We had oyster crackers between each wine taste and we ended up buying four bottles of wine. The view from the front porch, where we were tasting our wine, was pleasant. I like that area and it’s nice to see Southeast Arizona’ wineries starting to get some traction. Marilyn was very pleasant and I left her a 5-star Yelp review.

We then made our way over to Tombstone and then down to Bisbee, where we had dinner at Bisbee Taste. We had been there once before when we first moved to the area, and our experience was quite enjoyable.

After a lovely meal we may our way down the mountain and across the open desert under the night sky to make our way back home in Tucson. One more peek at the lights in the historic district in Bisbee.

Overall it was a very pleasant day and just what the doctor ordered for our mental health.

Caturday.

Family harmony continues to build in the four-legged world of the Desert Compound. Shortly after this photo was taken and nap time was complete, Truman was spotted licking Lucky’s ear and Lucky was fine with it.

This nap time is indicative of the typical vibe amongst the dogs and Truman. Once in a while there’s running around at full speed but for the most part they are pretty chill.

Everyone involved enjoys the cool marble floor at this time of year.

Lotta Love.

One of my favorite songs of all time, here’s a special remix of Nicolette Larson’s “Lotta Love” originally released in 1978.

Portly.

As an early birthday gift to Chris and Mike we’ve installed a gas powered pizza oven in the outside kitchen. There has been a number of delightful pizza like experiences with this new appliance and they are enjoying trying different doughs, toppings, and the like.

Always surround yourself with culinary inclined folks when you are not a part of the culinary inclined folks.

One of the pizza “paddles” that came with the oven didn’t survive the first pizza experience and a replacement quickly arrived. The oven company didn’t want the defective paddle back, so Chris and Mike decided to turn it into a wall decoration. Using the myriad of tools out in the wood shop, they came up with this design. It is now hanging in our kitchen and I think it looks fantastic.

Details.

I was wasting time on Youtube. The algorithm suggested a run of all the credits ever shown for “Laverne & Shirley”. I suddenly remembered something that has been bothering me since I was a kid.

The two women in this shot in the ending credits can not be Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams.

The same two people are shown throwing snow at each other during the first season opening credits, and if you look really close, it looks like one of them is a man disguised as a woman. Yay for HD remastering!

Their profiles just don’t look like Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams. I even noticed that on my parents’ 19-inch Zenith back in 1978.

Back In The Air.

Last month I became part of a local flying club after being on the wait list for a bit. I’ve finished my security clearance requirements necessary for going into restricted areas of the airport and tonight I had the chance to finally get in the air for one of my checkout rides.

I hadn’t flown since early February, and while I have plenty of hours in my logbook, I always get a bit nervous when it’s been over 30 days since I last flew. I knew I needed to do some checkout flights with the club instructors to show them that I actually know how to fly an airplane, and my flight with Josh turned out to be just fine. If there’s any area of my life where I take an extremely conservative approach to things, it’s around my aviation decisions. It’s part of my plan to become a very old pilot.

While I’ve done plenty of touch ‘n goes at KTUS Tucson International Airport, this was my first time actually departing from there. Because it’s the airport is in Class C airspace, there’s a couple of extra things I need to do on the radios to head out, but once I got that down I was good to go.

It was a really fun night and I’m excited about the club airplanes.